


Just sometimes

by inchildhoodwedream



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inchildhoodwedream/pseuds/inchildhoodwedream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because she was just Lizzie and he was William Darcy and sometimes she hated him, but mostly she loved him and sometimes, when he would stare at her with that small smile on his face like she was what he needed in order to breathe, in order to live, she began to believe that maybe this life with him didn’t have to end. </p>
<p>(Drabbles from a life that began with a leap, continued with a kiss and melted into a promise.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Because sometimes he assumes.

Because sometimes she feels like she’s perpetually standing a few feet away, on the outside looking in on this blissful life. Because sometimes he stands there in a wrinkled Oxford shirt (her doing because he keeps wearing those damn ties that she can never keep her hands off of), stirring the frying pan and she wonders when she’ll wake up, when this will all be over, when he’ll realize that she is far too dramatic and sarcastic and her family far too wacky.

 

Because she was just Lizzie and he was _William Darcy_ and sometimes she hated him, but mostly she loved him and sometimes, when he would stare at her with that small smile on his face like she was what he needed in order to breathe, in order to live, she began to believe that maybe this life with him didn’t have to end.

* * *

 

_Because he wanted to show her how proud he was of her and all that she had accomplished._

* * *

 

The first time she feels it is at a surprise.

 

His only instructions were to dress nicely and to bring her appetite.

 

(“Oh, so you’re saying these ratty sweatpants aren’t appropriate?” She had remarked when he’d brought it up. “Because I don’t know if I want to go anywhere without sweatpants and wifi.”

 

“Be reasonable, Lizzie. There will be wifi.”

 

She had laughed.)

 

“William, will you please tell me where we’re going?” He had arrived at her house with a strip of black cloth and a mischievous glint in his eyes.

 

“I will soon enough. Don’t you trust me?” His breath raised goosebumps on her skin.

 

“Only when you’re not acting like a serial killer.”

 

“You have discovered my secret plan to tie you up and chop you to pieces. I suppose this means we must now make alternate plans for the evening.”

 

“William, I-“

 

“SURPRISE!”

 

She slipped the cloth from her eyes and looked around at her family and friends beaming back at her.

 

“I thought we should celebrate your graduation here,” he murmured in her ear.

 

After the suitable amount of hugging and well wishes, she pulled him aside.

 

“This place is too much.”

 

“It’s a special occasion.”

 

“There are chandeliers that cost as much as my entire house,” she pointed out, arms crossed over her chest. “There’s celebrating and then there’s blowing the equivalent of a college fund on one dinner.”

 

“I thought-“

 

“Darceface, Lizzie, if I have to wait one more minute for some food, my stomach is going to claw its way out of my body and onto the floor. Let’s get our grub on!” Lydia interrupted.

 

“Later?” He asked.

 

“Later,” she confirmed.

 

But Lydia had too much to drink and Mrs. Bennet had droned on for far too long (“This place is just so _expensive._ Mr. Darcy, how _nice_ it is that you can afford such a classy dinner!”) and later never came.

 

* * *

 

_Because sometimes he forgets that she comes from a different social class. He forgets he has to help her._

_Because sometimes he feels so at home with her that he forgets, for fleeting moments, that they haven’t always known each other, that they haven’t always been in love._   

* * *

 

The second time Lizzie felt it was fifteen weeks after they had kissed, at a July 4th barbeque that William and Gigi had thrown at their house in San Francisco.

 

In the Bennet household, Fourth of July meant Mrs. Bennet’s potato salad, a yelling match because Lydia wanted to set off fireworks in their backyard and Mrs. Bennet blatantly refusing, homemade popsicles and hot dogs on the grill.

 

With this expectation, Lizzie arrived to the Darcy house with party mix, jean shorts, flip-flops, a white tank top and an American flag as a headband.

 

“Hey Lizzie B!” Fitz called out as she entered.

 

She heard his voice before she saw him, and as her eyes found him, the smile that was already on her face slowed.

 

Instead of the casual attire she had expected, Fitz wore a dress shirt and pants. Glancing around, she noticed that many of the men wore the same thing.

 

“You look awesome!” Gigi added, appearing on Fitz’s right shoulder. A geometric dress in red and blue adorned her figure.

 

“T-thanks,” Lizzie replied haltingly. “Sorry, I thought this was going to be a more casual thing.”

 

“It’s no problem,” Gigi remarked, taking the bowl of party mix from Lizzie’s hands. “William and I usually enjoy a more informal dinner on the Fourth, so you’re in the right spirit.”

 

Glancing at the china place settings, Lizzie muttered, “This is informal?”

 

“Lizzie,” a deep voice to her right said.

 

“William! There you are.”

 

His lips ghosted across her cheek and she felt the familiar tug of her stomach.

 

“You look lovely.” His eyes smiled at her.

 

“I feel supremely underdressed. You didn’t tell me that this was going to be a fancy thing!” She hissed.

 

“This is not fancy,” he replied, confused.

  
“It is for me, William! Us Bennets don’t have three forks for a Fourth of July meal; we have hot dogs and lawn chairs.”

 

His chin tucked into his chest and his eyes are fixed on his shoes.

 

“Forgive me. I believed this was normal.”

 

“Well, it’s not, William. I feel like an idiot dressed like this.”

 

“I apologize, Lizzie.”

 

His eyes bore into hers, desperate, searching for forgiveness. She sighed.

 

“It’s all right. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I had a long day at work.”

 

He rubbed a hand up and down her back in soothing circles, wondering how he had managed this long without touching her.

 

“What happened?”

 

“We lost the files from this huge project we’ve been working on for the past month and my chair fell apart and it was just a day when everything went wrong.”

 

“I am sorry that you had such a rough day.” He pauses, before his lips turn into a smile. “Perhaps tonight, after everyone leaves, we can watch a movie featuring Colin Firth.”

 

“You hate Colin Firth.”

 

“Ah, but you love Colin Firth.”

 

She grinned.

 

“Deal.” And then, closing the already miniscule gap between their bodies, she whispered, “And then maybe, we can participate in other…pleasurable activities to make this day suck a lot less.”

  
He felt a blush wash through his body, but smiled widely in anticipation.

* * *

 

_Because sometimes, even though he assumes, she loves him anyway._

* * *

 

_  
_ **Note:**

Well, there it is! I hope you enjoyed this unbetaed story. I don't know how long this is going to be and I don't have a very specific plan for this story, but I'm strangely okay with that. Feedback is always appreciated and enjoyed!

-Adina

 


	2. A Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a much needed conversation.

_Because sometimes he’ll buy her presents for no reason other than to see the joy on her face when she opens them._

* * *

_Click!_

 

The shutter of the camera alerts William’s attention a moment too late. Lizzie brings the camera away from her eye to inspect her handiwork.

 

“May I see?” He inquires softly.

 

“Sure. Here.” She hands the camera over.

 

His eyebrows twitches slightly, but his mask remains in place.

 

“I look…relaxed.” Lizzie smirkes.

 

“That isn’t always a bad thing, William.”

 

“No, not bad. Just different,” he says after a few moments.

 

He glances up and holds her gaze, his lips turning up slightly in the smallest of smiles.

 

“I am pleased that you are enjoying your present.”

 

“I am. Even if it was a surprise to get a gift like this completely out of the blue.”

 

He looks at the ground.

 

“But then again, how could I document your hipster-ness with this high of a resolution if I didn’t have this?”

 

He chuckles and they launch into the familiar, playful argument about his fashion sense.

* * *

_Because sometimes she sits at her desk, running through a conversation over and over and over._

 

* * *

 

“William, you know that I love you, but sometimes I feel out of place in your world.”

 

Lizzie rehearses that line every step of the walk from the bus stop to his house.

 

“Lizzie?” His voice tentatively calls out as she steps through the foyer.

 

“Yeah, it’s me.”

 

He appears in the entranceway that connects the foyer and the living room.

 

“How was your day?”

 

“Stressful,” Lizzie replies.

 

When he brushes his lips against the skin of her forehead, she can feel the tension in her face and shoulders melting away.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything that I might help you with?”

 

“No, it’s fine.” She pauses, taking a breath in and letting him guide her to the couch in the living room before adding, “Actually, there was something that I wanted to talk to you about.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“I’ve been unfair to you.”

 

His mind immediately begins spinning a thousand different scenarios, each ending with her terminating their relationship. But this isn’t that conversation. At least, not yet.

 

“Will, I…” Suddenly the rehearsed words vanish from her brain and all she is left with are jumbled phrases. “I want to have a conversation with you about money.”

 

He frowns slightly, unsure.

 

“When you bought me that camera last week, I was really happy. At first. And then I began to think about how much it cost and the fact that it wasn’t my birthday or our anniversary or anything and I got really freaked out because in my world, people don’t buy their girlfriends $900 cameras for no apparent reason and I kept thinking about how many meals that would’ve bought me when I was in college or how that’s an entire month’s pay for my student loans and it just really reminded me about how I feel like I don’t belong with you, in your world,” Lizzie rushes out.

 

William takes her hand.

 

“You do belong with me, in my world. It’s _our_ world now.”

 

“Will, that’s sweet, but it’s not-it’s not addressing the issue here.” She pauses. “I want you to take the camera back.”

 

“I don’t want to do that. Your camera that you used for your videos is just for video. This one is equipped to shoot video and take photographs and you are going to need that for your company.”

 

“I don’t want to feel guilty every time I look at it. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to feel like I belong with you.”

 

He frowns again.

 

“You do belong with me, as I belong with you.”

 

“I won’t feel like we’re right for each other if I feel destitute every time I look at my freaking camera, William.”

 

They are silent for a few moments, each trying to make sense of the other’s feelings.

 

“I propose this: what if the camera is an early Christmas gift? I will still get you something come Christmas, but this is your main present. Would that make you feel better?”

 

She smiles and a breath escapes her in relief.

 

“Yes. Thank you, Will.”

 

He beams at her.

 

“I know that that is a short-term solution, but I still want to talk about the bigger picture here,” Lizzie continued. “There have to be some ground rules: no ostentatious gifts for no reason.”

 

“Are flowers acceptable?” He interjects, causing her to smile softly.

 

“Yes. I still love coming home to flowers on the table.”

 

“All right. Continue.”

 

Lizzie is silent for a minute as she works to put words to her feelings.   


“I think we…assume things about each other based on how we grew up. Like with the Fourth of July thing and how I thought it’d just be a barbeque because that’s what it is in my house. Or how you assumed, and then planned, a fancy dinner when I graduated because when you were growing up, that’s how you celebrated things. Or how you bought me that camera for no reason because your dad used to surprise your mom like that. We…grew up with two completely different lifestyles and I think we forget sometimes how different our backgrounds are.”

 

He digests her words quietly and then nods once, his chin tucked into his chest as he stares at his shoes.

 

“I can understand feeling that way, Lizzie. I’m afraid that I don’t quite know how to fix that sort of thing. Should we communicate more about events like the dinner on the Fourth?”

 

“Yes! Don’t assume anything, okay? If we have a date night or we go out with Gigi and Fitz and Brandon and you’ve made a reservation, tell me how nice the restaurant is. And if you have a dinner or it’s our anniversary or whatever, I’ll try not to assume what it’ll be like.”

 

“All right. I believe I am capable of doing that.”

 

She grins and kisses him, achingly slowly because they’ve done this many times and they know that they will do it many more; because this is about human contact and her telling him how much she loves him, how much he means to her. Because her kiss is about letting her mouth be the gateway for her heart to join his.

* * *

 

_Because sometimes, when she kisses him, the world goes gray around them._

_Because sometimes, her kiss is everything he needs._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is! I was initially planning on having this conversation later in the series, but I didn't want it to be a broken loop of the same problem in various different scenarios. While I think the money issue would have an impact on their lives, I don't think it would completely dominate their relationship. 
> 
> Anyway, please review! This chapter is once again unbetaed (which, if anyone's interested, I'd be glad to think about changing), so I'd love to hear all feedback you have. I'm experimenting with the tenses (the first chapter was past tense and this was present tense); which one do you like better?
> 
> -Adina


	3. Completely

_Because sometimes they sacrifice._

* * *

 

He doesn’t like her second favorite restaurant.

 

To him, the cheap paper tablecloths itch against his sweaters and the shrimp on his plate still looks like it’s squirming and it’s entirely too loud and all he wants is to be able to hear her voice as she animatedly tells him about her day because he just loves the sound of her voice.

 

But to her, the paper tablecloths are there for drawing and she excitedly takes out the crayons because she likes that she can create worlds when she draws like this and it doesn’t matter that her stick figures are questionable or that her flowers are the same height as her trees, she loves getting lost in the flow of the crayon. She always gets the same meat dish when she comes because it almost literally melts in her mouth and she hates it when people misuse the word “literally” but in this case, there is no other word to describe it. She loves the bustle, because she doesn’t want to have to contain her excitement as she tells him that she has four whole investors now who actually want to give her money to do essentially the same thing she was doing for fun anyway. She loves it all.

 

And maybe he doesn’t know exactly why she loves it, because he can’t read her mind, no matter how often he wishes that he could, but he understands that she does and so he sits on chairs with see-through upholstery because he loves the shape her lips make when she smiles as she bites into the meat.

 

* * *

 

_Because sometimes he realizes how fragile love is._

 

* * *

 

Because sometimes he’ll remember what that long night of being overwhelmed by her mocking words, feeling a thousand different words beating down on him, echoing loudly in his head: “Soulless, joyless newsie”; “Rude”; “Selfish”. The words had rattled in his brain, jumping off edges and beating on his skull as his chest started tightening and it became harder and harder to breathe until he couldn’t any longer and that’s when the forty-year-old whiskey came out and never went back to its cabinet.

 

He’ll wince while remembering that night, because if the pre-Lizzie life was a haze, if he can barely recall his life without her, that night will forever be completely and totally intact in his memory.

 

He’ll realize how she holds his entire happiness in those tiny hands, how he holds hers in his large ones, and how they must be careful to not crush the delicate thing they each hold.

 

But he’ll smile when he realizes that they are strong, much stronger than either could know, because he can trip while holding her heart (and he has, far too many times) and she will still love him.

 

* * *

  

_Because it is an odd thing, to be loved and to love so completely._

 

* * *

 

Because sometimes they’ll be in a group, out to dinner or to Carter’s, and Lizzie and William will look at each other and it is like they could do nothing else for the rest of their lives and be perfectly content, like there is nothing else around them, like the only thing they need is each other.

 

One of their friends or a sister will nudge them and suddenly the world reappears, bustling and loud, but a moment after their eyes will reconnect and a silent, “Later,” will pass between them.

 

Because when they aren’t together, there is a shared ball of anxiety in the pit of their stomachs and it is only when they are reunited that they discover they can breathe again, as if they’ve forgotten how to while the other was away.

 

* * *

 

_Because it is with her upturned lips and his poor attempt to stop grinning that they remember how amazing it is to be loved like this._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I know this was super duper short, and I hope that the other chapters won't be this short, but this one is kinda special to me. It's kinda a doozy at times, emotionally speaking, and it felt weird to have an ordinary situation next to them staring deep into each other's eyes (as a side note on that, I swear that I didn't mean for that to happen and for it to sound so cliche, but they just seem like the type of people to get lost in each other. There was this one couple I knew where, when they'd talk to each other, you couldn't talk to either because it was like no one else existed and that's how I saw these two acting like.)
> 
> Anyway, since this is entirely unbetaed, I don't get any feedback unless it's yours, so if it strikes your fancy, comment below so I can know what you guys think! 
> 
> Much love,  
> Adina


End file.
